Arlene M. Rosen | Climate Change and the Origins of Agriculture in Western Asia

Presented by Arlene M. Rosen, Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin
Cold/dry climatic foraging is often cited as a direct cause of the origin of agriculture in western Asia. However, this does not fit with the lack of evidence for cultivation in the Natufian period. Microbotanical analyses suggest late Pleistocene foragers were resilient risk-adverse foragers during cold/dry episodes, allowing the continuity of forager lifeways. Foragers only took risks with collection and low-level cultivation of a smaller range of productive plant resources such as wild cereals during times of warm/wet, stable climates.
This Braidwood Visiting Scholar lecture is free and available to the public.
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[@nhabib114]

Thank you for a wonderfully clear lecture.

[@aaron.aaron.v.b.9448]

One might want to spot an economic truth in this. Growth does not spring from hardship, but from opportunity.

[@perrywidhalm114]

Good video. I've studied the "agricultural Revolution" so-called all my adult life. You're video is right on target with agricultural evolution not revolution. Thanks!

[@jaylee5835]

I recommend collaboration with Marshall Sahlins.

[@RonJohn63]

10:31 The Mayan *Empire* -- and all it's technology -- *did* collapse; the *Western* Roman Empire *did* collapse.
10:46 There certainly was no memory of Roman technology in western Europe!!!